Red Rising Movie Greenlit at Paramount With Lawrence Directing
By @sharedot · · 6 pages
- Books
- Book Adaptations
- Red Rising
- Science Fiction
Paramount has greenlit a film adaptation of Pierce Brown's Red Rising, with Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence attached and Brown producing.
Paramount greenlights the Mars saga
More than a decade after it was first published in 2014, Pierce Brown's Red Rising is officially headed to the screen.
According to IGN, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed on October 16 that Paramount Pictures has picked up the rights to the sprawling sci-fi series, with Hunger Games alum Francis Lawrence set to direct.
Lawrence — who directed every Hunger Games film except the first, and recently helmed Stephen King's The Long Walk — will produce through his about:blank company alongside Cameron MacConomy, with Francesco Goedhuis and Brown himself also producing.
Brown reacted on Instagram with, "Let fall the iron rain. Bloodydamn, I love this team."
Why fans are buzzing about this team
The surprise for devoted readers is the director pairing. Sortir à Paris notes that Lawrence returns to a dystopian tale built around a rigid hierarchical society, a genre he knows well from the Hunger Games franchise, where he is also at work on the forthcoming Sunrise on the Reaping.
The screenplay will be written by Justin Rhodes — a name IGN readers may recognize from Netflix's live-action Bioshock movie, reportedly still in early development — whose credits include Terminator: Dark Fate.
Crucially, Brown is attached as an executive producer per Sortir à Paris, meaning the saga's author stays inside the production rather than handing it off entirely.
The story the film will adapt
Set in a galaxy with a strict color-coded caste system, it follows Darrow, a Red — the lowest rank — who toils in the mines of Mars believing he is making the planet habitable, only to learn that was accomplished generations ago.
After uncovering the betrayal, he infiltrates the highest caste, the Golds, and wages a deadly conflict spanning more than a decade. IGN adds that the book series is planned to end with its seventh and final installment, which as yet has no release date.
What comes next for the adaptation
IGN frames the news as the latest exciting development for book readers, coming just after Prime Video's Fourth Wing series found its leads in Emilio Sakraya and Esther McGregor.
For readers new to the saga, IGN points to its guide for navigating the sprawling series, which it predicts will come in handy once the movie eventually arrives.